We're Made of Tragedies, and Fade to Dust
by Ariadne Lys
Summary: Everybody has a story. Some are forgotten, and some are only seen from the surface. But underneath it all, behind everything, is a life built off of nightmares. Some try to forget. Some refuse to forget. Some can't forget.
1. Left Over Right (Takeru Tenkuji)

**Howdy.**

 **I guess this is really just a collection of short scenes delving into the hearts and/or minds of general characters. There isn't much to this, just my weird obsession with overanalyzing things and ripping people apart to find their inner souls and demons.**

 **These will probably be written during bouts of laziness, where I write just so I don't forget how to.**

* * *

 _I'm alive._

That's the one line Takeru repeats to himself, over and over again, in his mind.

He's alive. It's true, that he's alive, even though he's dead all the same.

He was already killed, already a corpse, now just a soul left lingering without a real body. But he was alive. A living being. He still had a body, sort of. Revived temporarily, sure, and mostly just a spirit, but alive still, in a way.

His soul was still intact. But he'd died. But he couldn't be a ghost. He couldn't be one because he could still think and feel and do everything a living person could.

That makes him alive. He knows he's alive, even if he died.

Sitting by a pond of glassy water, he looks at his reflection. His eyes glimmer with youth and energy and it makes him almost shudder. He looks alive. He feels alive. He's alive.

He shouldn't be alive, already killed off. He has felt death, he's been killed, but he knows that he's meant to be alive. But there was much he had yet to fulfill, for sure.

Takeru's a child, and children die all the time. But he's different. Children die and families mourn, but even those deaths serve a purpose. Every bit of life, even death, has a meaning to it.

Did that first death really matter, when he could have just as easily done what he's doing now while still alive? His death didn't matter, but it may as well have been the most important thing to ever happen to him. He died. But other than that, nothing truly happened to him.

It feels so insignificant, his death. Because what real purpose did it serve, when he was just brought back to continue life the way he would have if he'd lived? It feels especially unfair because he's stuck between alive and dead now, and the only thing that's changed is the fact that he isn't really human anymore.

With the tip of his pointer finger, he touches the water of the pond. He watches the form of the ripples in water, so much like ripples in life, where everything becomes as distorted as his image. But after a few moments, his reflection becomes normal and stable again, just as life should allow peace after suffering.

Takeru knows he was meant for more than that death, that stupid little event that triggered so many more important things. It still feels meaningless to him, and he can't stop thinking of reasons why he should still be alive. He still has so much more he needs to do.

He feels it coursing through his body, something he needs to fulfill before he dies for real. He feels it now, even stronger than he felt it when he was first alive, now that he's been given all this power.

But even before that first death, even during it, he knew in his bones there was more to him than just the awkward and flimsy teenaged boy who loved history. The lost child who was trying to live up to his father's legacy.

Takeru has been given the chance of a lifetime.

He isn't alive anymore, but he isn't dead anymore either. He hasn't come to terms with it yet, but he's on the way. Because he keeps repeating it, he keeps telling himself, _I'm alive._

He will win his wish. He will for sure grasp the life he's trying his best to get back. He will no longer be trapped between life and death. He deserves to live. And he will live. He will live again, live to his fullest, and then he will die for real in a meaningful way, more meaningful than his first death, after he's done even more good than he could within his first steps into life as an almost adult.

He will come back to life.

He smiles and acts as a boy his age should, and nobody sees the turmoil of his very being.

Takeru touches his own face, affirming his own existence yet again. Completely alone in this moment of time, he has allowed his mind to wander off a route he doesn't like to venture in.

He knows he's alive. He'll tell it to himself as many times as he has to. He's still staring at his reflection in the water. There's not much to him, really just a boy with light hair and bright eyes and a world of suffering.

He readjusts his brightly colored jacket, checking the fold. Always left over right, as he was taught by his father. Left over right, it means he's alive. But in his reflection, it shows right to left, as if he were dead. His reflection, staring back at him, has a jacket on as if he were dead. His reflection, showing him just who he is—dead.

Because this boy, who is so full of life, he's anything but alive.

Takeru Tenkuji is dead. He's a ghost.

And he'll have to learn to live with being dead.

* * *

 **I wrote this before Ghost even began airing. I had this on my mind and I don't know why. So I wrote it and here it is.**

 **U** **pdates will be irregular. Very irregular.** **But here's this one introspective thing for now and pray I might have another one up someday. Favorite, review, whatever you like.**

 **\- Ria**


	2. They Had Names (Takumi Inui)

Takumi isn't afraid of dying, not anymore.

He probably was at one point, when he was a child and before his human life ended.

Even if he does not fear death, he still hates it. He hates watching humans die, especially by one of his kind. He hates the way they crumble into dust and disappear, leaving only the memories of what used to be.

Now that he thinks about it, he hates watching Orphenochs die, too.

He's killed countless of his own kind, of Orphenochs, but their deaths are just as sad as a human's would be. And maybe those deaths are even worse.

Orphenochs are already dead. Memories become merely memories, because all of that is destroyed the moment the Orphenoch is born. They lose everything they were once they regain life.

Orphenochs were human once. But al, that was forgotten the moment they spawned out of a corpse, even with their human soul still intact. They are monsters now, despite the fact that who they were when they were alive has not changed al, that much.

But their memories remain, the only links to their pasts. Their lives. Their names.

But when they die again, those memories are completely destroyed. Nobody remembers the Orphenochs because all anyone can ever do when faced with a monster is want to forget. Nobody ever gets to learn who the monster used to be, and then they fall and become ash and they blow away in the wind.

When an Orphenoch dies, it's more than just passing on.

They cease to exist. It's like they never lived at all, as a human or as a monster.

No matter who or what the Orphenoch is or was, whether they lived in peace or they were murderers, Takumi can't stop feeling a sense of pity from deep within himself.

Maybe he feels it because the Orphenoch are his kind, no matter how much he dislikes showing his wolfen form.

Memories are now his least favorite part of death. The fact that there are too many memories, and the fact that there are too few memories.

That Orphenochs who die do so without anyone to remember them for it. That humans who die become a pile of memories that are given up over time.

He just doesn't want to be a part of memories that don't matter or don't exist anymore. He wants life to be remembered.

Death destroys the meaning of life.

And yet, maybe death is what helps remember life.

Because when a life ends, everyone else tries their hardest to keep the spirit of that life alive. They remember life was like and hope not to forget.

Even as time passes on, as life passes on, those who are gone are still remembered in some way. Even the faintest of memories is still a memory. Even passed down as history, a memory is a memory.

A memory of a monster is still a memory.

A memory is a memory, no matter how good or how bad.

Takumi would rather be able to carry all the memories of all the beings he's encountered, Orphenochs and humans alike, than to see them disappear and lose all meaning.

He doesn't hate memories. He hates forgetting.

Memories are what Takumi treasures above all else in the face of death.

Takumi remembers.

He remembers what he can of when he was human and what there is of him now. Of his friends and allies, dead or alive. Of his enemies, too, those he has battled and those who have been destroyed.

Because to forget them would be a disservice to them all.

* * *

 **This was written in the comfort of a sad dorm room with nothing to do after a weird high of Faiz emotions. So it's short and probably really bland and might not make any sense** **. Whoops.**

 **This one is also about death, conveniently like the last little blurb I wrote. Which wasn't intentional, especially considering the first and also last time I worked on this it was a year ago. Maybe I'll try to be more frequent.**

 **I don't really know how this happened. I kinda like it, though, so don't harp on it too much. Have fun.**

 **\- Ria**


	3. To Be Human (Chase)

There are lots of types of feelings that Chase doesn't understand. More like things he can't experience. And will never be able to experience.

He understands things quite easily, actually. He can quickly decipher the ways people work and act. But there's a wall between them and him. A wall he can't get through. And on the other side is the ability to feel the way they feel.

The concept of family, he understands enough. He understand friendship and partnership and the bonds between people. Shinnosuke Tomari and Kiriko call him a friend, and he is proud to be considered such. But the truth behind it all is that he is just a computer.

He understands how emotions work, how they cause one to act and react. Even the other Roidmudes can feel emotion, in a way.

Chase almost can't.

And it would be funny, if he had a sense of humor, that he is the only human-modeled Roidmude, and he is the least capable of feeling.

He cannot feel anger or sorrow or love as powerfully as someone else would.

Even the pain he feels is distorted, different than normal pain should feel. He reacts like a human should to what should be pain, but it's merely a hardwired reaction. He was made to resemble humanity and to act like humanity. But every reaction is just his programming, telling him how he should react in order to seem human.

He cannot taste properly, the receptors in his mouth unable to give the full effect of flavor, but he also does not feel the need to eat. Nor does he have a need to consume food, his body just metal and wires and not actually alive. He can still intake food, even if it does nothing for him, so he still sometimes sits with those who are his allies, Shinnosuke Tomari and Kiriko and the rest of the special investigations unit, and eats with them.

He can process colors with the images he sees, at least, and he always chooses the color purple because he knows that it's the color that belongs to him. It's the color of what would be considered his soul, if he were a human.

But Chase still is still so very unlike anything.

If Chase were to have any selfish desire, it would probably be the capability to feel as strongly as the rest, and to be a real human. Not just a robot pretending to be human.

Because he isn't like the Roidmudes, even though he is one, and he isn't like the humans, even though he was modeled after them.

He can't blend in with either race. He's too different from both.

As a Roidmude, they fear him for once being proto-Drive, and once the Grim Reaper, and now Kamen Rider Chaser. His natural body is individual from the rest, not a bat or spider or cobra, but that of a human. He does not evolve the same way as the rest, his advanced form a result of upgrades and not of his own synchronization.

As a human, he's distanced from the rest. There's an offness in his gaze, the unwavering, strange focus of his eyes. His mannerisms are odd, and it's hard to connect with him. He looks like them and acts like them. He speaks like they speak. But he still stands out because underneath the mimicked flesh is a machine.

At least he has a chance to be more human because he was created to follow after them. He's a Roidmude—he's supposed to strive to become human, and then become beyond them. So programmed into him, and to the other Roidmudes, is the goal of becoming as much like the humans as possible.

His path to humanity is a little harder than that of the others, thanks to his barely there emotions and sensory abilities.

In the way that the other Roidmudes were programmed to need feeling fuel, his programming needs him to fight. His instincts are hard-wired into him. Protecting others. Enacting justice.

They were put into him by somebody else. It isn't there for his sake. It's for the sake of others around him.

He isn't human.

He's treated like one, but he isn't one. He can pretend he is one, but he isn't one.

In reality, Chase doesn't know who he is yet. All he know is that he needs to protect.

He observes the emotions, desires, and needs of others, trying to more understand humanity. And to more understand who he is. Because he's one of the most important creations to exist, but he struggles for an answer of what to do now.

Maybe it's because of the human he copied. Maybe that human, who he barely remembers synchronizing with, is what caused it. Incomplete synchronization, maybe, since all Chase has is the man's face and nothing else. Or his emotions weren't strong enough to cause him to evolve, and thus cause Chase to have a smaller capacity to feel. But that doesn't really matter.

All he knows is that emotions aren't a part of him, and he can't just have them synced into his body.

He can only learn them, one by one.

So he does his best. To observe what others around him do. And find humanity within himself, and pick up the pieces that he needs to be complete.

* * *

 **Well. Here's something, I guess.**

 **I'm just trying to not do an actual school assignment, so I've decided to return to this piece of work. This is the result.**

 **Enjoy.**


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